Reading Response 4: Born to Run

                The Christopher McDougall mentions the Leadville Ultra- Marathon. This ultra-marathon is one of the toughest races in the entire world! Only the baddest of the baddest runners come and compete in the race. Sometimes not even half of the runners will complete the race due to altitude sickness, dehydration, falling off the side of mountains, or complete exhaustion.  The Leadville Trail 100 was created by Ken Chlouber in 1987. Ken was an out-of-work, bronco-busting, Harley-riding, hard-rock miner when he created this magnificent masterpeice. When Rick Fisher, a reporter/journalist, found out about this race and when found the Tarahumara, he put two and two together and had one of his greatest ideas ever. He wanted to put the Tarahumara in the Leadville Trail 100, and have them win it. So he got a couple of sponsors and picked out a team of young Tarahumaras and took them to race. The Tarahumara started off in the back of the race and never left that position. They came in dead last. Rick Fisher didn’t know what he had done wrong. Then he had another great idea, he needed some experienced runners. So he got retreived some older Tarahumara and couple young ones. He took them to the same race. Before the race began they ran off into a junkyard and started ripping up some old tire to make sandals. The Tarahumara started in the same place, in the back of the pack. They were there through the first part of the race. Then at about mile 40 the indians were nonchalantly passing runners left and right. At mile 60 they were flying! The Tarahumara were going so fast that the aid stations werent even able to help the runners with fluids and food. The Tarahumara made some records at the race. The had the oldest and youngest runners in the history of ultra-marathons and the squad was the first ever to grab 3 out of the top 5 spots, also they had top 2 finishers in the entire race.